I sat there for a few seconds, not really knowing what it was that this Daniels guy wanted from me. By showing me Belle’s book did he want me to talk about that or was that some kind of silent threat meaning he wanted me to ID the wrong person so we could forget all this nonsense and move on?
Because I was unsure, I did the only logical thing I could think of as a man in my situation.
“I need to use the bathroom.” My voice cracked as if I was a 13 year old going through puberty for the second time.
“No more bathroom breaks Mr. Carter. I’m sure you can hold it in for the time being.”
I shifted in my seat slightly. Okay that didn’t work the way I wanted it to. I glanced over at Kevin who could tell something was wrong. “Everything okay?” He asked with a raised eyebrow. “Do you recognize someone?”
“Yes, is your memory suddenly coming back?” The officer asked me, once again moving closer.
“I’m not exactly sure what you want me to say….” I answered honestly, “I don’t recall seeing anyone like I’ve said a thousand times and no matter how many times you ask me, that answer is not going to change.” I was scared but when I said that I tried my best to look Daniel’s in the eye.
He looked back at me intently at first and then he loosened up and smiled, “Okay…that’s fine.” Daniel’s then stood up and started pacing back and forth, “Mr. Richardson, what do you know about the previous owners of your home?”
I was surprised by that question and by the look on Kevin’s face so was he. “Not too much,” He answered, “I just know they left in a hurry.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because they left so much stuff behind, the place was a mess.”
“Have you gone through the stuff?”
“Not really. I just intend to throw it all away; it’s cluttering up my house and taking up too much space.” Kevin stood up, “If you’re done with Nick, we’ll be going, we have things we still need to do.”
Officer Daniels looked over at me and once again smiled. I wish I was able to read through that smile. “I have nothing left to ask him. He obviously didn’t see anything.”
I nodded at him and stood up, half tempted to go under the two mug shot books and grab the journal and run. “Thanks.” I decided to say instead.
“Don’t go too far just yet, I might have some more questions for you.” He said as he put his hand on my shoulder.
Once we were safely out of the police station, Kevin actually grabbed my wrist for a second as if I was his two year old son or something. Maybe it was instinct but whatever the case, it looked WRONG! I pulled away from him and he laughed, “Sorry…” He said as he beeped the alarm off his car, “force of habit I guess.”
I got into the car and put on my seatbelt. This is Kevin, if I didn’t do that myself he would reach over and do it for me because he did just take my hand after all.
“We need to go back to the house.” He said.
When he mentioned going back to the house I got all excited. God I’m such a nerd. “Why are we going back there? I thought you said we needed to take a break from that.”
“Because whatever it is that he wanted is clearly back at the house.”
“Why do you say that?”
Kevin looked over at me as if I was a moron. I mean, I’m used to that look; I get it more often than not, but still… “He seemed very interested in my stuff. I mean why did he care about who owned the house before I did?”
“You think this has to do with Belle then?”
He nodded at me, “I don’t think what he was looking for was in the book you found, otherwise he wouldn’t be so interested to know what is left of theirs.”
Wow, Kevin is pretty good at this detective thing. “Maybe AJ found some dirt on the family and Belle.”
“I’m hoping so but I’ll be happy if he was actually able to find his way over to the library.”
“I know…what were you thinking sending him to a library man?”
“Out of the two of you, I think he was the best bet.”
“Hey!”
“Well, it’s the truth….I wonder…” Kevin stopped mid sentence and started biting on his lip.
“What?”
“I wonder if I were to throw some stuff out tonight, if our little friends would come and look through the garbage.” Kevin had a smirk on his face. I could tell he was enjoying this little adventure I managed to set him on.
“Kevin, you sneaky bastard I LOVE that idea!”
“I have no idea if it would work or not but maybe we should set a little trap for them, just to see if they would be that willing to dig through garbage to find what they are looking for.”
“I bet they would, I mean whatever they wanted they were willing to kill for.”
“Kill?”
“They almost killed me Kevin, remember?”
“Nick you were bopped in the head. That’s a long ways away from being killed.”
“Sure, it’s easy for you to say because it wasn’t YOUR head that was bopped!”
“I would have never let that happen to me in the first place.”
“Right, I’m so sure you would have prevented that from happening.”
“I would have.”
“So are you saying me being almost killed was my own fault?”
“Nick you were not almost killed! Stop saying that, I mean God forbid…”
“I was almost stabbed to death.”
“Nick do you want to come with me to the house, because the more you talk about your little near death experiences the more I think I should just leave you at the hotel.”
“You have to take me with you!”
“Then stop reminding me that you almost let a stuffed teddy bear kill you, okay?”
“Jesus…fine!” I turned away from him and muttered, “It was an evil bear though.” To which Kevin shook his head.
After picking up AJ from the library, we headed straight to Kevin’s place again. AJ wasn’t too pleased about that. He’s such a chicken I swear! Turns out he didn’t find too much on Belle’s family but there was a lot on Belle herself. A ton of old magazine articles talking about how talented she was. He handed all the photocopies to me as he jumped into the backseat of the car.
“I’m impressed you thought to get those articles photocopied AJ.”
“What you think I’m a moron like Carter?”
“Hey!”
“Nick is not a moron AJ.”
“Thank you Kevin.”
“You’re welcome little man…so tell me what is in those articles?”
I quickly leafed through some of the pages AJ handed to me. Turns out Belle was quite famous in her day. I’m kind of surprised I had no idea who she was. She seemed to grace the cover of almost every teen magazine at one point in time. Her face was everywhere, just like mine used to be.
“Doesn’t seem like anything too serious, her favorite color is tangerine though…that’s a weird one.”
“There’s nothing about the family?”
“I couldn’t find too much on them. There was one article towards the back of the pile Nicky…it was from a local newspaper. It seems like the police had been called to the house a bunch of times for domestic disturbances.” He grabbed the pile out of my hand and searched for the one article he was talking about. “Here it is…local celebrity deals with violent family…weird title huh?”
I nodded as he handed the paper back to me. There was a picture of Belle in the corner, one that I had seen before. It must have been one of her head shot pictures. Underneath that was the title of the article and directly below that was a picture of her father in handcuffs being taken out of the house.
“What does the article say Nick?” Kevin asked as he continued to drive towards his new house.
“Yesterday morning at around 2 A.M. the police were called to break up a fight at the Wainright residence. Witnesses say that Harry Wainright staggered into his home drunk after a night of partying and shortly after screams were heard. A next door neighbor called the police after she thought she heard a gunshot. Maria Wainright looked noticeably distraught as she held onto her son Tommy. Belle, famous for her role in Finding Brotherhood, was not home at the time.” I stopped reading and skimmed down a little further and read a quote from the neighbor who called the police. “That family is totally nuts and out of control. They have all this money and don’t know what to do with it. There’s nothing worse than rich white trash.” I stopped there.
“That was harsh.” AJ said, taking the article back from me to reread it himself.
“People suck sometimes.” I muttered, once again trying not to compare her family to mine. It was so hard though, because at the end of the day we were similar. When my mother broke into my father’s house and attacked his new wife, I had to deal with those comments coming from just about everywhere. People were saying the meanest things about my mother and even though I kind of felt the same way, it hurt. No one wants to hear strangers say things like “that Jane Carter is such a crazy whore!” Or “Well I don’t blame her because if I had married that Bob Carter, I would be crazy too! It’s a wonder their kids aren’t more fucked up then they are!”
I tried my best to shield my siblings from those comments. To hide them from the pages of the local newspapers and tabloids but it was almost impossible. They read them and once more we all retreated into our own corners, silent and sad.
“Nick?” I looked over at Kevin. I didn’t realize he was talking to me.
“Yeah?”
“I said, are you okay? You just got really quiet.”
“Yeah, I’m fine…”
“People say stupid things because they don’t know any better.” I know he realized I was taking things personally when he said that. When all that crap happened with my family, it was Kevin that I leaned on the most. He was there for me every step of the way. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they all were but Kevin was the only one that wasn’t afraid to bring it up. He told me repeatedly, that none of the stuff happening was my fault and that I was a good person despite what people who do not know me may say in gossip magazines, news papers, television shows, radio programs or message boards etc…
God, what am I going to do without him? He can’t leave.
“Did you hear me Nickolas?”
I nodded at him, “Yeah, I heard ya.”
“Good.”
“I wonder how Belle felt about that?” I asked no one in particular. Maybe I was asking more for myself than anyone else.
“I’m sure she thought it sucked.” AJ answered.
“Is there anything else about the family in there AJ?”
“Nope, but I didn’t really look through everything, I figured that Nick would want that job.”
“I would like to do that, very much.”
We finally had arrived at our destination and were getting out of the car when Kevin looked over at me, “Are you sure you’re okay to read through those?” He asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” I nodded at him just to show that I would be okay with it.
I grabbed the pile of articles and followed AJ and Kevin inside, “I can’t believe we are back here again.”
“Shut up AJ, I’m going to be living here with my wife!”
“Sorry man, but its hella creepy ass, you know what I mean dude?”
“Says the man with a confessional in his house?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“AJ, your place looks like you room with Marilyn Manson.”
“That would be cool!”
They kept going on like that but as I got into my reading I started to tune them out. Hey, if they can do that to me then I can do it to them, it’s only fair. I found a corner by the fireplace, right underneath a window and sat down on the floor Indian style continuing to read one of the articles I had in my hands. It wasn’t so much about just Belle but more like an article talking about child stars and how hard it is for them to make a transition into adulthood.
They mentioned a lot of names I had heard before like Ricky Nelson and Gary Coleman. Both of whom had more than their fair share of turmoil when they grew up. I’m sure I would have been named in this article too if I was alive in the 70’s. This one was written in the mid 1980’s though. I could tell by the big hair and all the spandex. It was like the real version of our video Just Want You to Know. I started giggling because I bet Kevin and Howie looked a lot like these people back in the 80’s.
Anyway somewhere in the middle of the article, it mentioned Isabelle Wainright and her troubled childhood. How her parents were prone to fighting and how eventually it led Belle down a dark road to drugs and alcohol. It said in the article that she ended up going into a rehab and was never heard from again and all that happened before she even turned 30. For all they knew, it said, she was probably working at a local McDonald’s. There was a small picture of her as an adult. I had never seen her grown up. She was beautiful but she had very puffy eyes and wasn’t smiling at all. She looked a lot like how I felt.
I moved that article to the back of the pile and went searching for more information. There were a lot more things about her when she was a kid and a ton of small blurbs written about her incredible acting abilities for being so young. All her costars were blown away by how natural everything came to her. They all claimed she would be in the business for a long time.
They interviewed her mother in one article, a day on the set of Finding Brotherhood. Supposedly she played the cute little sister to two very different brothers. She was the one that everyone got to ooh and awe over. Her mother said this job was a difficult one for her baby but she wouldn’t have it any other way. She put her in the business because Belle had begged her to, simple as that and whatever her baby wanted, her baby got.
“I wonder if her baby ended up supporting the entire family in the process while loving mommy and daddy did nothing but fight?”
“Huh?”
I looked over at AJ, “Sorry…I was talking to myself. It seems like Belle’s mom was a typical stage mom.”
“Oh that’s lovely.”
“Yeah.”
He came and sat down next to me, “Kevin wants to set a trap for the police now. What did you give him, some crazy Kool-Aid or something?” He asked.
I smiled at him, “By the way, you owe me money!”
“I owe you shit Carter!”
“Nope, you can keep the shit, I’ll take the money! You can give the shit to Howie when he gets here, I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.” I said.
AJ laughed, “Oh yeah I’m sure he’ll love that. Okay well I guess I have to go back to helping Kevin set his little trap. It scares me how excited he seems about this. You have created a monster!” He stood up, “And please explain to me why once again I’m doing the manual labor and you’re just sitting on your ass reading.”
“Because YOU said you wanted me to read remember? And besides, Kevin likes me better.”
“Suck it Carter!”
“Maybe later McLean.”
He laughed under his breath, “And just for the record, you’re not white trash, okay?”
I smiled up at him, “Thanks AJ.” See? That’s the way AJ deals with me. He was fully aware I was taking things personally too. Kevin and AJ just handle things a little differently that’s all.
“No problem.” Just then Kevin yelled AJ’s name from upstairs. “Gotta go…papa Smurf wants me.”
“Have fun!”
“You too…try not to get a paper cut!”
“Shut up Bone!”
I shook my head and was just about to return to my reading when I happened to stretch and look towards the fireplace. I noticed something kind of shiny in there. The sun hitting it through the window made it shimmer. “What the hell?” I crawled over to it and looked inside and there on a very small nail was a key ring and on it was one very small key. I grabbed it and gave it a closer look, “Now what is this?”
It was too small to fit into any doors even the one downstairs but it was the perfect size for “a diary.” Etched on the key was the number 13. I stood up and nodded, “Now, this is interesting…”
I needed to figure out what the thirteen was all about and how I could find the diary that this key related to. I knew if I did I would finally be able to unlock the mystery of what was going on. “I bet this is what Daniels was looking for.” I said to myself as I made my way upstairs to show Kevin and AJ my find.
